Jot 5

I wrote this forever ago and at the time I had an idea for the rest of it. But it's been so long now that I can't remember what I had in mind. And now I realize this section needs some work, but that's for later.

My parents rushed to my side, worry smeared across their faces. My mother reached me first, clasping my bloody hand.

“You are going to be alright, sweetie. You’re going to be fine.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself rather than to calm my fears. The paramedics wheeled me away, tearing my mother from my grasp. We slammed through the swinging doors that separated the emergency room from the main entrance. The doors bounced back and forth, revealing my parents in flashes.

No body could have warned me of the eminent danger. I would not have believed them. I had not put myself at any obvious risk and yet here I was, being wheeled through the bleached hallway of the hospital. The white walls were blinding, deterring any effort to keep my eyes open, an idea encouraged by the prods of the doctors and nurses that had rushed to my side.

“Where do you hurt?” a gray-haired doctor at my gurney asked.

I licked my lips, preparing to answer. I tasted blood. “Everywhere but especially my leg.”

“Which leg?”

I concentrated on his question. My eyebrows furrowed. Which was which? “Uh, left, I think.”

“You think?” The doctor gave a young nurse next to him a worried glance.

We stopped in the emergency room but the color of the walls was not any less disturbing. Though they were not bright white, they were a split-pea green. A vomit green. A dead and rotting corpse green.

My bloody clothes were cut off of my body, IV needles stuck into my arm. A nurse put a mask over my mouth and nose. “Just relax and breath deeply, honey.” I did and the pain soon vanished along with my consciousness.

The second my eyes opened again, pain shot through my body like a bullet, striking every nerve. I groaned noisily.

“Oh, Roger! She’s awake!”

“Mom? Mom, it hurts so bad.” I clenched my teeth.

“Nurse! Nurse! She’s awake! We need some more morphine!”

A chubby nurse in floral scrubs bumbled into the room, a cheery smile on her face. “Well, hello there!” She tottered to my bedside and pushed a small red button on my heart monitor. My heartbeats were quick and uneven but soon steadied as the drugs did their job.

“Mom, what happened?”

My mother frowned. “We were hopping you could tell us, honey. A man walking down Norton Rd. found you lying on the sidewalk covered in blood. He called 911. The doctors found many deep gashes on your arms and chest. They even found a bullet in your right leg! A bullet!”

Oh, so it was my right leg, I thought.

My mother continued with her anxious tirade. “What on earth were you doing?”

I closed my eyes, thinking hard. Nothing came. “I don’t know, Mom. I can’t remember.”